Jonathan Haidt
@JonHaidt
Social psychologist at NYU-Stern, working to roll back the phone-based childhood. Please visit https://www.anxiousgeneration.com & https://www.afterbabel.com
An encouraging sign: I'm hearing more and more about Gen Z "rebels" who refuse to get sucked into the social media lifestyle. They choose to do hard things and analog things. washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/…
The dilemma for Iranians: "Would you rather have a stranger kill your abusive father, or have him continue to live and abuse your family?" A beautiful essay by leading researcher in moral psych (and friend) Morteza Dehghani: nytimes.com/2025/06/28/opi…
Yes. Writing is not a second thing that happens after thinking. The act of writing is an act of thinking. Writing *is* thinking. Students, academics, and anyone else who outsources their writing to LLMs will find their screens full of words and their minds emptied of thought.
"Chromebooks are the new Baby Einstein – an untested educational panacea with laughably dubious evidence of any positive outcomes." Putting computers on students desks was a terrible mistake. By John Allen Wooden johnallenwooden.substack.com/p/ok-google-ma…
“The way to get over anxiety is to let our kids grow.” 🌱 — @JonHaidt In a convo with Virginia’s First Lady, Haidt recommends The Let Grow Experience: a simple, free school assignment where kids try something new on their own. ✨ Join the movement: letgrow.org/program/experi…
🇺🇸 This Independence Day, we're reflecting on one of the most famous early American defenses of academic freedom. Despite plenty of accomplishments, Jefferson was particularly proud of founding @UVA—he made it one out of only three accomplishments engraved on his tombstone. 💡…
Can anyone find a school, state, or country that went phone free (bell to bell) and regrets it, or reversed it? The Netherlands went phone free in most schools in 2024. Their first major survey of schools finds very positive results: theguardian.com/world/2025/jul…
"Monasteries were ancient, wealthy institutions: socially revered centers of learning and piety. Yet within six short years of Henry VIII’s coordinated political attack, launched in 1536, the monasteries were gone. Could a similar fate await our universities?" 🔗 Read…
Here's my latest talk, at @aspenideas, with thanks to Olivia Walton as discussion partner. I explain why I now think that attention fragmentation is the greatest harm of the phone-based childhood youtube.com/watch?v=5KKqz_…
What should you do if you've already given your child a smartphone or social media account, and you regret it? As a parent, when you have new information, you can change your family's policies. Here's how, from Andrea Davis, of Better Screen Time: afterbabel.com/p/family-tech-…
I agree, this is a problem. We're working on this too, e.g., afterbabel.com/p/the-edtech-r…
It's always a pleasure to talk with @jordanbpeterson. We went deep into the mechanisms by which the phone-based childhood brings different consequences for girls and boys -- in developmental trajectories and mental illness: youtube.com/watch?v=AflY1C…
Plans of an 11 year old for a summer vacation spent in the real world. Beautiful. @LetGrowOrg
@JonHaidt .. from my 11-year-old niece. There’s hope!